Classic work famously translated by John Dryden / THU 5-21-20 / Lewis Taste of Country Cooking writer / Classic gin grenadine cocktail / Fix for shortsightedness

Constructor: Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty: Easy (untimed)

THEME: RED CROSS (37D: Organization with three Nobel Peace Prizes ... or what "corrects" the answer to each of the starred clues) — theme answers appear to contain incorrect colors, but the "correct" color is arrived at by the addition of (the letter string) "RED," which CROSSes each "wrong" color, and thus "corrects" it:

Theme answers:

• 16A: *Sycophant (GREEN-NOSER) (i.e. "brown-noser"— GREEN + "RED" (from PREDATOR) = brown)
• 27A: *Classic gin-and-grenadine cocktail (WHITE LADY) (i.e. "pink lady" — WHITE + "RED" (from FREDDY) = pink)
• 44A: *Military medal (BLUE HEART) (i.e. "Purple Heart" — BLUE + "RED" (from REDEEM) = purple)
• 59A: *Annual Florida football game (YELLOW BOWL) (i.e. "Orange Bowl" — YELLOW + "RED" (from REDO) = orange)

Word of the Day: EDNA Lewis, "The Taste of Country Cooking" writer (48A) —

Edna Lewis (April 13, 1916 – February 13, 2006) was a renowned American chef, teacher, and author who helped refine the American view of Southern cooking. She championed the use of fresh, in season ingredients and characterized Southern food as fried chicken (pan, not deep-fried), pork, and fresh vegetables – most especially greens. She wrote and co-wrote four books which covered Southern cooking and life in a small community of freed slaves and their descendants. (wikipedia)

• • •

Very much liked this theme. I liked this theme while I was solving and I double-liked it when I got to the revealer. "Good revealer," I have written in the margins of this puzzle. It's a revealer I *probably* should've seen coming, but I don't tend to think ahead like that when I'm solving. My thought process was something along the lines of "oh, this first set of circles is RED, 'cause red + green = brown ... oh, they're *all* RED, that makes this a lot easier, but still enjoyable ... ohhhh, RED CROSS, of course. Good one." The theme was easy to pick up and, once picked up, very easy to complete. Knowing the themers would all have colors in them was a huge help, and luckily I was familiar with all the theme answers, even the "pink lady," which is probably (no, certainly) the least commonly known of the bunch (though I don't think of it as obscure). Good idea, good execution, good revealer—as far as the theme goes, this one very much succeeds.


The fill was certainly less enjoyable, and I don't know if this is because the grid was under a good deal of thematic pressure from the "RED" element, or if, you know, it just wasn't as polished as it could be. That ECOLAW IDES EER bit up top is rough—I have three frowny faces in the margins there.. And the THE in THE NBA is pretty horrid, especially coming on the heels of yesterday's THE ARMY—the arbitrary THE-ing of answers feels slightly out of control right now, and I'd like it to stop. THENBA is likely to be one of the more significant time-sucks in this puzzle for solvers, and it's not a great feeling to find out that you've been struggling because the puzzle decided to throw in a random THE for no good reason.


Otherwise, there's not a lot of cringey stuff, but a lot of it is on the overly-common side, for sure. I can't believe we haven't retired EDEL, which is paradigmatic crosswordese. Unless you solve crosswords regularly and/or are really really Really into Henry James (whom EDEL biographized over five frickin' volumes), this is not a name you're gonna know. He died in the late '90s, and was never a household name to begin with. He just has Good Letters (seriously, if you construct, there will come a time when you're like, "Damn, EDEL would work perfectly here ..."). Whenever I see his name now (which is rare these days, thank you, constructors) I think "oh come on." It's a mothball answer for sure. But here, at least, there seems to be a good reason for his appearance, i.e. he's right in the thick of a color crossing; the way the grid is built, it would be very hard to replace EDEL with anything else. So I guess if you're the constructor, you offer up EDEL as a sacrifice to OOXTEPLERNON, the God of Bad Short Fill, and hope that He blesses you with an otherwise successful puzzle. Today, I think the sacrifice was probably worth it. Full disclosure, though: I am likely to be warmly disposed to any puzzle that is willing, with a straight face, to refer to a Dryden translation of Virgil as "famous" (1D: Classic work famously translated by John Dryden). As I wrote in the answer to that clue (AENEID), I looked up from my comfy chair to my own copy of said translation on my bookshelf and was well pleased (didn't see any EDELs there, though, alas ...)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. 42A: Alternative to O is AB, not TYPE AB. Alternative to TYPE O is TYPE AB. Randomly throwing "type" in the answer absolutely destroys clue/answer equivalency. It would be like if you clued THENBA as [NFL alternative]. If one is being posited as an "alternative" to the other, then the phrasing needs to be parallel—no gratuitously added words. Boooooo! That is all. Wait, one more thing: the plural of elk is elk, not ELKS (57D: Cougars' prey). That is all.

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